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She raises the walkie-talkie to her lips, fingers trembling slightly. “There’s only one thing that’s going to draw it out,” she says, picturing Sheila’s cold hungry eyes and morphing face so close to her own.

“Just give it a damn minute, Jane,” Thomas snaps, urgent and too quick. He’s scared, she realizes; his voice sounds exactly as it did when she was dangling in the passenger seat before she opened her eyes.

“Don’t, Jane, please don’t,” he begs.

But she knows there is only one way to fix this now. Jane sits the walkie-talkie on the ground and picks up the hair spray and Zippo lighter. Then she twists the lock on the door and steps out into the cold air.

The end-of-November chill is refreshing, instantly drawing Jane’s posture straighter as she creeps out into the parking lot. She eyes the circle of blood nearest to the glass, where Jackson must have been dumped. Farther from the store, the door of the police car is still ajar where Jane slid out of it earlier, and the sheen of Whitmore’s carnage splatters outward next to it. The drag marks from Sheila still lead over to Jackson’s Jeep.

Perhaps from the treetops, the violent sweeps of red look more like a beautiful mural.

Thomas’s voice comes from overhead, low and rushed as he calls out to her to get back inside. As Jane ventures into the lot, she looks up to meet her brother’s and Kimi’s wide eyes. Their mouths hang open, suspended in a fear that Jane lets slide off her shoulders.

She gives them a single nod before turning and walking out farther, until she reaches the circle of lighter fluid and blood Thomas created next to Jim’s truck. The remnants of the busted gloves are strewn amongst the red leaves, and she grips the Zippo tighter.

“Hey,” she calls out. Her voice sounds weak in her ears, so she clears her throat and looks straight ahead at the dark forest in front of her, shifting and looming as one great entity. “Hey!” she shouts louder. “I’m here. Come and get me.”

Her legs are shaking now, begging to take off in a muscle-tearing sprint. But she keeps her feet planted in place as she calls out to the night again, loud enough that an owl takes flight from a nearby tree.

The reply finally comes in a deep, familiar voice. “Hello?” he asks before breaking off into a cough. “Jane? Jane, is that you?”

As she turns back toward the store, a figure stumbles around the side of the brick building. He grips it for support, glancing around nervously until his eyes land on her.

“Jackson.”

She knows this game by now, knows that copying the skin of another is all part of the joy of the Mimic’s hunt. But as what looks like Jackson calls out her name again, groaning as he clutches his head, her heart leaps painfully.

We never saw where his body went, she thinks, recalling Ashley’s words about his wounds and Kimi’s on how he had perhaps made a run for it after being put outside.

Jane keeps a careful grip on the hair spray and lighter, feeling the loyal bob of the fire poker against her thigh as she walks to the front of Jim’s truck, closer to where Jackson’s form continues toward her.

“God, it’s so good to see you.” His voice carries out across the parking lot. “My head—I keep going in and out,” he adds. The right side of his face is all dried blood from a shiny opening at his hairline. Another gash is visible beneath his collarbone, seeping red through his shirt. “Look, there’s a storage closet on the side of the building I’ve been hiding out in. We need to get back inside.”

From the store, Winnie lets out a bark.

“Jane, don’t!” Thomas shouts from overhead. “It’s just another trick!”

She glances up briefly at her brother, barely able to make out his horrified expression from this distance. Next to him, Kimi has the shotgun aimed.

Jane faces Jackson, willing her body to provide some sort of gut instinct regarding his presence, though she knows too well how easily people can hide their true selves.

He takes another step forward.

“Stop!” she shouts, ready to flick open the lighter. He pauses, holding up both hands. “How do I know it’s you?” she asks. She can still hear the Mimic speaking through Sheila’s voice earlier, telling her they could be monsters together.

“Please, Jane, just let Winnie come out and see me. She’ll know it’s really me,” he says. As if hearing him, the German shepherd gives an excited yelp from where she’s stuck behind the counter inside the store. Jackson flashes a small smile that causes Jane’s shoulders to relax slightly.

She inches closer, glancing over the planes of his sturdy build and his kind face for any signs of wrongness. “Is it really you?” she almost whispers, unable to keep the budding hope inside at bay any longer.

The dimple in his cheek appears. “Did I say how good it is to see you?”

Twenty-five

and a sleepy head,

There is only black to accompany the pain shooting through him in harsh, even waves. Jackson fights against it, kicking faster toward the small limp body lying face down in the lake water some twenty feet away. Dark red pools around it, seeping from the head where it clipped the cliffside on its graceless descent.

He’s almost to it. He holds out his hand, desperate to grab hold of the closest floating limb, and the slice that tears up his arm from a nearby rock barely feels like anything at all. All it means is that there is more blood in the water now.